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Dining reviews

Behold the steak list. You will rarely see one as detailed as that on offer at C. Ellet’s. Depending on the night, the menu may offer a choice between an 18-ounce, 35-day dry-aged bone-in Kansas City strip cut from Angus cattle raised in Texas and distributed by Allen Brothers, a 7-ounce Coulotte from Tajima cattle raised in Washington state and distributed by Mishima, an 8-ounce Angus hanger...

Some years ago, this much-renovated structure on a stretch of Juniper known for its stately homes was a place called Spice. Just recently, it was Time Restaurant & Lounge. In between and perhaps most notably, it was Straits Atlanta, a Singaporean-influenced restaurant where Grammy-winning rapper Ludacris and his team served kung pao lollipops and a $50 margarita. (Ludacris flew the coop to open&nbsp...

A visit to Kula Revolving Sushi Bar in Doraville is a little bit like stepping inside a sushi-themed pinball machine. Domed dishes of edamame, nigiri and sushi rolls whir by on a conveyor belt, beckoning you to grab what you want. As you deposit empty plates in a tableside disposal chute, your “score” appears on a personalized video monitor. At five-plate intervals, the screen lights up...

When you eat at Sushi Hayakawa, you may notice how few people are there. It is not a lack of customers, but a lack of seats. Even on a fully booked Saturday night with every seat occupied or reserved, your eyes may scan the well-lit room and see only a handful of tables, the thick-hewn, wooden slab of sushi bar, and scarcely more than a couple of dozen diners. Behind the bar’s simple glass coolers...

At Greens & Gravy, chef Darius Williams’ souped-up soul food joint in Westview, you can get fried catfish on a puddle of roasted sweet-potato grits, Garlicky Turnip Green Alfredo, and short ribs braised for six hours in a hearty pour of Malbec. Williams even riffs on the food-on-a-stick trend, skewering fried chicken and biscuits and sending them out with country gravy for dunkin’. How...

The Cuban singer and composer Margarita Lecuona wrote the song “Babalú” in 1939. It is a dramatic Afro-Cuban number backed by a hip-shaking beat. The moody Spanish Creole lyrics are a plea to one of the deities of Santeria, a story full of ritualistic candlelight, cigar smoke and brandy. They speak to a culture melded from African, Caribbean and European traditions. The best-known...

What’s not to love about General Tso’s chicken? It is the sticky, saucy, crunchy, salty and sweet epitome of Chinese restaurants in America. You might call it a second-generation dish, the sort that doesn’t resemble the food served in Hunan Province, the historical home of the namesake Tso Tsung-t’ang, as much as it appeals to the American taste for sweet, fried things. It...

The Fitbit is irrelevant. The most essential information for every serious Atlanta Beltline pedestrian is knowing where to stop for a beer. When the Beltline’s Eastside Trail opened a few years ago, Ladybird Grove & Mess Hall was the place for a refill: a Creature Comforts Tropicalia for you, a bowl of water for your pooch. It will come as no surprise, then, that before the ribbon could...

What is a food hall? On cynical days, I wonder if it is just a marketing revision of “mall food court,” an advertiser’s way of saying “like Panda Express and Sbarro but artisanal.” When I’m being more optimistic, I think food hall could describe a place more uniquely new, a collision of food truck-style culinary bootstrapping and cheffy fast-casual entrepreneurial...

Sometimes when I go out to eat, I want to feel like I’m out: I want the fancy room and the full service. Other times, I want the comfort of home without the trouble, the big bowl of something satisfying plopped in front of me without much show. In general, restaurants make it easy to know which way you’re going. You see a maitre d’ in a suit or a white tablecloth on the table and...

As far as collaborations go, the idea of one between local butcher and craft beer proprietors just goes together as well as sausage and ale, doesn’t it? The affair behind Barleygarden Kitchen and Craft Bar in Alpharetta’s Avalon development has just such a natural balance to it. Kraig Torres, owner of Hop City Beer, has built a reputation for sourcing excellent and impressively large...

I wish I could explain why so many Americans dig hard-shell tacos. Don’t be a snob. You know what I’m talking about. Crispy tortillas folded into a U and traditionally filled with spicy ground beef, lettuce, tomato, yellow cheese and salsa, they are not authentic Mexican at all. They became popular at a time when most of us knew little or nothing about Oaxacan mole or “chiles en...

On a recent Saturday night at the ﻿Old Fourth Ward’s newest Italian restaurant, A Mano﻿, you could see paper lanterns in the distance. Somewhere past where we could see, there were thousands of glowing lights floating through the dark, colorful and whimsical creations carried by participants in the Atlanta Beltline Lantern Parade. But here on the corner of Ralph McGill and Glen...

I’ve been stuffing myself with fast food, and for once in my life, I feel good about it. Perhaps that’s because this orgy of eating has not included a single french fry, hamburger or milkshake. No, ma’am. Look for me among the worshipful throngs at Upbeet, Atlanta’s new high altar of fast, clean eating. It’s the latest concept from Young + Hungry Hospitality, the company...

On my first visit to Yummy Spicy on Buford Highway, I made it through the hot and numbing chicken, no problem. I devoured the beef tendon and tripe in chili sauce as easily as a can of sardines — easy-peasy. Even the stir-fry of spicy lamb did not blister my Caucasian taste buds, though it was spiked with no less than three kinds of capsicum: Sichuan peppercorns, red-pepper flakes and pods of...

The shopping center on Cumberland Boulevard where Bollywood Zing is located in Smyrna is not a particularly inspiring place. There are a vacant department store building, an Army recruiting office, and, like every other shopping center in metro Atlanta, a joint to get some hot wings. Depending on your perspective, this may be the last place you expect to find a kitchen run by two young guys putting...

It is Tuesday night in Sandy Springs and the valet line for Kaiser’s Chophouse is stacked. The cars arriving for dinner seem to have all been driven here directly from the car wash. In the night glow of streetlights, the paint shimmers and the chrome gleams, though none quite as much as the three cars parked right in front: a black Maserati, a blue Bentley and a white Porsche. The valet guys...

The first night I ate at Food Terminal, the new Malaysian restaurant on Buford Highway, I brought a friend whom I consider to be about as food-obsessed as I am. He’s spent much of his adult life working in kitchens and making food pilgrimages, whether eating his way through Southeast Asia or wandering the boroughs of New York in search of the perfect slice of pizza. In other words, he&rsquo...

My handcrafted cherry-and-rosemary soda comes garnished with a dainty purple carnation that’s just a few shades darker than the outside of this restaurant. The Chicken Liver Mousse arrives in a little red tea cup, surrounded by sliced green apples, yellow carrots and watermelon radishes so thin you can almost see through them. Ooh la la. This is what Saturday brunch looks like at Petit Chou...

Thanks to “Baby Driver,” moviegoers everywhere are now privy to what Atlantans have known for years: Bacchanalia is “the finest wining and dining of all the wines and dines in town.” It is the default special occasions destination in this city. A reservation at Bacchanalia begs for dressing up, for thinking twice about attire, all in anticipation of being transported to the...

When you live in Atlanta and get assigned to review a country-cooking spot up Lake Allatoona way, and invite a friend and her 15-year-old son to come along, you don’t expect them to text back: “We love that place!” As it turns out, Doug’s Place Restaurant, a Southern meat-and-three diner just off I-75 in Emerson, is a favorite spot of my friends, Jodi and Sam, who reside in...

It’s about 7:30 on a Saturday night, and a stocky, bespectacled guy wearing a green T-shirt is hunched over a cutting board slicing scallions. The chef sprinkles the green onions on a dish of red catfish curry tossed with eggplant, green beans, lime basil and Thai lime leaves. Cupping the bowl in his hands, he moves from behind the counter to our table. He places the “pla duk pat prik...

If I had to guess which way of cooking meat is the oldest, which technique was favored by our loincloth-wearing, cave-dwelling ancestors, I would probably say “shoving hunks of meat on a stick and holding it over a fire.” It is a culinary invention that was spontaneously invented in dozens of places across the entire world. Skewered, charred meat might be called one thing in Nigeria or...

At a weekend lunch in June, I walked into Cafe Songhai from the summer heat, slipped down into one of the cool, long booths, and decided to try something new. Like many places that serve African food, or food of the African diaspora, the kitchen here will be happy to whip you up a plate of ripe plantains, sliced and fried to a light caramelized touch. But the menu also offers krakro, a fried lumpy...

On a recent weekday night, a Kandi Burruss superfan walked into Old Lady Gang and took a look around. She surveyed a happy-looking throng at the bar full of people drinking bright, colorful cocktails and leaned her head into an adjoining dining room filled with the smell of fried chicken. After a moment’s consideration, she said, “This is it? I thought it would be bigger.” Her sister...

Last year, I had the good fortune of eating my way around Delhi, India, for a couple of days. Thankfully, my guide, Manjeet, was a fellow food lover — not at all shy about navigating the crowded, labyrinthine nooks and crannies of the old city in pursuit of vegetarian parathas, chicken tikka and samosas fried in hot oil while we watched. Back home, I never imagined I’d find anything to...

Never thought it would come to this. Never thought I’d utter these words: I’m embroiled in a long-distance relationship with a sandwich. Neither a conventional looker nor a singular slab of beef, the one I lust for does boast a rather coquettish name and a pedigree akin to royalty in the Atlanta delicatessen world. My princess calls herself Pastrami on Wry, and she’s just that: a...

When it comes to food, listicles abound. Who’s got the best barbecue? The best brunch? The best fried chicken? Such rankings can turn into quite the food fight for those impassioned by all things culinary. Like me with baguettes. (You should see the ridiculous spreadsheet I kept that time I wrote a piece on top baguettes. Did some bat-shaped bread really require that many columns...

Like most people I know, I often aspire to eat a little better than I do. More vegetables, smaller portions, local ingredients, that sort of thing. But, of course, life tends to get in the way. It ends up being easier to grab a cheeseburger from a neighborhood joint than finding and preparing a meal from, say, locally grown eggplants. This apparent gap between my aspirations and actual life leaves...

Growing up in Louisiana, we ate our po’boys on “French bread” that wasn’t like any bread in France. At the football games, we cheered “Geaux Tigers!” though “geaux” was definitely not the French word for “go.” Sure, any and all of us knew a little French — certainly enough to let “Laissez les bons temps rouler” roll off...

It was a thrill to write about Twain’s back in 2015. Not only was it one of the first restaurants I reviewed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it also felt like a discovery. The Decatur pub had been around for ages but had hired the witty and winning young chef Savannah Haseler (now Sasser). Sasser crafted a menu that respected the billiard hall’s pubbiness, but she also got a...

In its new home in Emory Village, Double Zero is a packed house during peak dine times. Varied seating — high tops, low tops, a community table, a gorgeous bar and lounge area with banquette seating, the requisite patio — are filled with an assortment of parties — dates and double dates of young and old, clusters of college kids, families, too. The high energy at Double Zero fills...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a drinker who imbibes a quantity of beer will be in want of some food. The college student who has supped Coors Light from red Solo cups may soon be speed-dialing the nearest pizza delivery joint. But the drinker of finer brews, the craft beer aficionado who can taste the relative freshness of Citra hops in a pint of India pale ale, might also be interested...

I’ve got a soft spot for cafeterias. My last semester of college, I got a job as a cashier at a cafeteria called Garavelli’s. It meant waking at 5:30 a.m. to clock in at 6. It also meant working with some people with a lot of drama in their lives who let me write about them for my English comp class. It meant a manager, Mary, who let me do homework during downtime. It meant a free meal...

Though it’s only been open for a few weeks, Kaiser’s Chop House on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs already has the look and feel of a classic dining destination. The modern steakhouse from Atlanta chef Peter Kaiser is billed as offering “an elevated dining experience with quality cuts of meats, superior ingredients and a boutique wine and cocktail program.” Beloved Atlanta chef...

As the barbecue purist picked up a thick slice of glistening, fatty brisket from the platter with his fingers, he said, “And this is what we call the ‘accordion test.’” From the bottom of the dangling slice, he tugged gently and the moist meat stretched just a little bit before giving up a bite that drenched his fingers in fat. The accordion test, he explained to me, was a...

Over the past several years, a friend who moved to Atlanta from San Francisco has often repeated a lament to me. “I just can’t find any Burmese food here,” she would say. I found it to be a surprising problem. One of Atlanta’s great assets, I tend to tell people thinking about moving here, is the deep, rich diversity of food available in our restaurants. Just drive down Buford...

Selling food on a street corner has long been one of the quickest ways to start a business, though it is hard work. The overhead is low, but that means one must brave the elements and stake claim to turf. Few last long in the business. Every once in a while, though, a street food vendor becomes so successful that they leave the street to sell food indoors, just like everybody else. In Atlanta, two...

When I’m going to a cube-shaped cafe (or to be precise, cocina/taqueria) in a suburban shopping center, I don’t expect to be swept off my feet. I brace myself for a functional, fluorescent-lit box, for dropped ceiling tiles and a single wall of windows. I know I’ll easily overlook this unavoidable tableau if the food is fabulous and the staffers are lovely. So I was truly shocked...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, to paraphrase Jane Austen, that a community in possession of good fortune must be in want of a neighborhood bar and restaurant. Over the last number of years, the East Lake neighborhood has become exactly that. New residents have flocked there for good reasons. It is a charming neighborhood full of trees and old homes and young families happy to be close to...

Kitchen Six has got a numerical shtick that I entirely approve of. On the menu there is a rotating roster of six comforting “bites,” six starters and six entrees. The desserts? Well, those are six, split: there are three. I love a tight, focused menu like this. Not only does it make the job of ordering easy, but also a chef with a small menu has the time to make every dish stand out. So...

Richards’ Southern Fried is a hot chicken stand in every sense of the word. Chef Todd Richards’ crispy chicken parts are both super-spicy and super-chic served from a retro-swank counter in Krog Street Market. Richards’ birds are also very delicious. Beautifully brined, crispy-skinned, obsession-worthy, who-cares-if-hot-chicken-is-overplayed delicious. I could admiringly ruminate...

Among the fickle winds of fashion and trends, some things never go out of style. A little black dress or a well-tailored suit will always fit in at a cocktail party. A pair of aviator Ray Bans never looks bad in the sun. Even when trends change for a few years, timeless style always returns. Much is the same with food. Though the restaurant industry can obsess over fleeting curiosities (nitro beverages!...

We were a party of six, so we were seated at the largest table in Jia — a round one made of warm, golden wood. In the table’s center was a circular insert. A Lazy Susan! Looking forward to spinning hot pots and rice bowls and pepper-laden platters this way and that, I put my fingertips on the disc and gave it a gleeful push. (Has anybody in the history of Chinese restaurants ever failed...

My favorite moment in a barbecue joint tends to be the first one. The doors open and you take your first breath of that bewitching aroma of meat and smoke. It is pure and simple, the unadulterated magic from which barbecue is made. That smell whets the appetite just as well as an amuse-bouche at a four-star restaurant. Everything to love about barbecue is in the smoke. It is such a mysterious substance...

When I think of Indian cuisine, a particular dish is not what comes to mind. Rather, it is the spice rack. It is cumin, coriander, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, fenugreek, mustard seeds, tamarind, turmeric, saffron. It is whole, dry spices, pan-toasted or wet-fried to draw out their complexity, with the added bonus that they fill the kitchen with a heady fragrance. The first thing I noticed...

The name of this chic new Asian-inflected barbecue joint makes a particular promise. You’re going to get smoke — in the form of barbecued pork, brisket and chicken — and you’ll get duck sauce, the fruity glaze that can turn Chinese takeout into dessert-as-dinner. Does the promise deliver? Copiously — at least when it comes to the sweet stuff. Sides such as pickled carrots...